Artwork, Inspiration and Daily Reflection

Tag Archives: rainbow

Let me start off by saying that I know my artwork is usually realistic, portraits and more serious, inspirational quotes with pretty illustrations and I will always continue to do those kinds of paintings. But every once in awhile, I just have to show my fun, quirky childlike side.

I love coming up with cute characters that do cute things. I always have. Since my high school years, I had always thought I wanted to work for a greeting card company and just create new ideas and characters like Hollie Hobbie and others like that. Needless to say, it really never worked out. But anyway….besides all that….

I just wanted to introduce these two little guys I am considering (working on) making into an ABC series for children’s decor. The characters in this series, so far, are a silly goose named Gunther, and his faithful dog companion, named Fluff. Together, they will be illustrating each letter in the alphabet with their cute, little antics.

Gunther is like a child, getting into mischief and doing goofy things, and every once in awhile, he may be spotted with his teddybear, Oscar. While Fluff is the more cute, little guy that watches everything from the sidelines, and sometimes getting caught up in Gunther’s silly shenanigans. I feel it will be a different way for the kids to learn their ABC’s. If anything, they will remember the illustrations.

Anyway enough talk…here are two illustrations so far. One is finished and just needs the text, and the other is in the middle of being painted. When I have 4 done, I will start selling them on my Etsy store.Then I will just go through the whole alphabet! So here goes…

Hi all! I am so sorry for not keeping up on this blog lately. I am now getting ready for my daughter’s graduation from college and I have been busily painting rooms and fixing things around the house like crazy. It actually feels good to see change,I must say. And who can beat the look and smell of fresh paint!

Anyway, I just thought I would share with you this painting which has been sitting unfinished like this awhile now. It’s another Amish Girl and she is supposed to be watching a baby chick on her lap. I really love the face on this little girl and I can’t wait to finish her, but she has to wait just a little bit. Every time I go into my room she is staring at me and I want so badly to just sit there and get down to business. I will…I will !

I will post again when I am finished with her.

Here is also another painting I finished. I have been doing random watercolors just to keep up with my artwork and to put something new in my Etsy shop. These watercolor paintings are less time consuming than the pastels, so I try to fit a few in before I start my fixing and painting of the house. This one is in watercolors and it’s a little girl looking out over the mountains under a beautiful rainbow. Inspired by the very thing I love to do, observe nature! I hope you like them. Be back soon!

I am posting a poem that my mother had me read a long time ago and it stayed with me…almost haunting me. It is by Oscar Williams and it is especially perfect for today, with all the war and terrible tragedies going on in the world today. Although it mentions the Jews, you can put yourself or anyone else in their place. It really makes you think, and it is almost impossible to imagine a world without war, but it is beautiful to imagine. The last stanza gives you the hope you almost are afraid to wish for, for you cannot imagine it ever happening, but it is nice to think about. Read on and dream…

One Morning the World Woke Up

One morning the world woke up and there was no news;
No gun was shelling the great eardrum of the air
No Christian flesh spurted beneath the subtle screws,
No moaning came from the many agony-faced Jews,
Only the trees in a gauze of wind trembled and were fair.

No trucks climbed into the groove of an endless road,
No tanks were swaying drunken with death at the hilltop,
No bombs were planting their bushes of blood and mud,
And the aimless tides of unfortunates no longer glowed:
A break in the action at last…all had come to a stop.

Those trees danced, in their delicate selves half furled
And a new time on the glittering atmosphere was seen; The lightning stuttering on the closed eyelid of the world
Was gone, and an age of horizons had dawned, soft, pearled.
The world woke up to a scene like spring’s first green.

Birds chirped in waterfalls of little sounds for hours,
Rainbows, in miniature nuggets, were stored in the dews,
The sky was one vast moonstone of the tenderest blues,
And the meadows lay carpeted in three heights of flowers:
One morning the world woke up and there was no news.

Here is another quote I had to illustrate awhile back. I haven’t been able to illustrate anything lately, and it makes me very frustrated when I can’t draw. I have to really make a schedule and put time aside to do this and soon, or I think I will go nuts!

But anyway, I like the way this one turned out because the colors came out soft and it’s just a girl enjoying a rainbow. I haven’t seen a rainbow in awhile, but when I do, (it usually happens in the back of my yard by the cemetery), I run around the house like a maniac and tell everyone to look. It’s like I forget everything else. And then, in a moment, it is gone. Even when I take a picture of it I know I can never get the full effect of what I just viewed. It never gives you that “awesome” factor of it just looming over your head, all these muted colors in the middle of nowhere! Perfection!

Here is one of those pictures that look more like a picture book illustration, than the more realistic pictures I’m used to doing. I really like the feel of this one. I got the idea from my daughter when she came home from elementary school one day and had drawn a picture of a small rainbow with the words “Life Is Great”(this was before “Life Is Good” came out) underneath it. I decided I’d add a cute girl to the picture-arms outstretched and looking like she really feels “GREAT”! This is the result. Hmmm….Maybe I should think of illustrating picture books!